Many website owners wonder why their websites rank well in Yahoo and MSN but not in Google. Why is this so and what can you do about that? It takes some time until Google lists new websites. Google needs some time to list your optimized web page.

Google's sandbox and your website

In general, brand-new websites with new domain names need about six to eight months to get top rankings on Google. The usual process is that Google indexes the new website, lists it for some less important queries and then the web pages drop from the search engine result pages for several months. Although other search engines list the site properly, Google doesn't list the website, sometimes not even for the company name. If you have a brand-new website, don't worry about this. You are not necessarily doing anything wrong. Google delays the inclusion of new websites. This phenomenon is called the Google sandbox.

Why does Google delay the inclusion of brand-new websites?

It seems that Google delays the inclusion of brand-new websites to encourage webmasters to build content instead of building mini-networks. Many webmasters try to artificially inflate the link popularity of their website by creating a network of small websites with different URLs that all link to each other. Many of these websites have no purpose other than linking to the main website. By delaying the ranking of new websites, this mini-network strategy doesn't offer a quick jump to the top anymore. The delay might encourage webmasters to focus on the content of their main website instead of building useless mini sites.

What does this mean to you?

If you have a new website, expect that your website will be listed within six to eight months in Google. Add content to your website, get good incoming links and make sure that your web pages are optimized for Google. As soon as you have a domain name, create a temporary page and link to it from another website to make Google aware of your website. The six to eight months delay starts with Google's first contact with your website. The sooner Google knows your website, the sooner you'll be listed. Yahoo and MSN don't have such a delay so do not focus on Google alone but also optimize your web pages for these search engines.